


Hanging by a Moment

by sugarybowl



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Snapshots, balcony fic???, birthday present for deinvati
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15775410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarybowl/pseuds/sugarybowl
Summary: Just a little snapshot of randomness that came to me in honor of deinvati's birthday :D





	Hanging by a Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deinvati](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deinvati/gifts).



Once upon a Wednesday, just around the corner, Arthur looked up at the peeling edges and the rusted iron and wondered if today would be the day that Pride finally gave way to the Fall. He was a man of habit most days, and he liked this route always, it was just _this_ bit. It was only these stupid few feet where the sidewalk was obscured by the shadow of a rickety balcony in violation of every code in the book that completely ruined his otherwise wonderful stroll down to the least hipster infested coffee shop in town because Arthur had to make a choice, every time. He had to make a choice between stepping onto the usually empty road out of harm’s way and behaving in what his mother called ‘Arthur’s damndest attempt to out-mule a mule’.

It was a sin, he knew, but he was a sinner in so many more ways that this little display of bravado walking beneath a slab of ancient concrete that would squash him into something resembling a latke shouldn’t register. Still every time he takes this route he pauses just before he has to walk under the balcony, just in case it is his last conscious moment on Earth. Escaping the existential crisis is enough of a boost to walk just a little faster to the other side of the dreaded shadow.

Today on this completely droll Wednesday, he does something incredibly stupid and looks up at the thing that will eventually and inevitably kill him. What he sees instead is a man. He is a full grown and quite broad-shouldered adult man and he is standing on what can only graciously be called a structure being held together by the Grace of God and its ongoing sexual tension with Arthur’s demise.

The man is puttering on the tiny space, and Arthur takes a step back to take stock of the situation. He seems to be muttering at a plant while trying to keep his cigarette a good distance away from it – in effect it seems as if the man is telling the plant to fuck off in the direction of the western sky. When he stands fully, Arthur takes another perhaps involuntary step back, certain that this man and the plant and the iron rails and the concrete slab are all about to come tumbling down. Instead he watches the man turn away from the plant and lean, without concern and with all his weight, onto the railing.

Arthur is speechless as he watches the man take a drag and then look down on the streets, eyes inevitably falling on Arthur’s gaping face.

Then the man is waving his whole arm in a movement that looks both carefree and violent.

He nods back, mostly embarrassed but partially terrified that he will either have to talk to this stupid dangerous beautiful man or continue on his now much more precarious way.

“Forgot where you were going?”

Arthur shook his head briefly, “I… no. I know where I’m going.”

“Changed your mind then,” the man calls over.

“No, I… still want my coffee,” Arthur grumbles back.

“What’s keeping you then?”

He takes a deep breath before he fixes his most irritating glare on the man, “You’re standing on the balcony.”

“Ain’t exactly in your way then am I, luv?”

Arthur mutters under his breath and closes his eyes, ready to make a quick walk of it.

“What’s that?”

“I said you’ll be in my way when that stupid thing collapses,” he shouts up, “which will be any minute now with you on it.”

“Oi, I am trying to watch my figure,” he says, running a hand down his visibly worn and thinned t-shirt, “no need to be hurtful when we’ve only just met.”

“It was already about to come down and now…”

Before Arthur can finish his sentence, the man is leaning almost folded over the balcony railing, “What’s about you come up here and see if it’s of a sound structure for yourself?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll throw in that coffee you’re after,” the man says somehow leaning more of himself onto the railing without keeling over it.

“You want me to come up there?”

“I just think it’ll ease your mind that way,” he says as he mercifully leans back, “It can hold the both of us, I’m certain.”

“What kind.”

“Speak up, luv I’m high up in the air.”

“What kind of coffee do you have,” he asks, with a raised eyebrow and his hands dug into his pockets.

The man smirks, Arthur doesn’t think he’s seen a real-life person smirk, “Come on up here and find out.”

Arthur makes a choice, every time he comes upon this balcony. Every time his choice is to do what he wants the way he wants to do it, even though it might very well kill him. Today as he tugs on the rickety peeling door that matches the rickety peeling balcony and makes for the rickety peeling staircase, it’s no different.


End file.
